Psalms Of Faith And Doubt In Ancient Times
At the end of the period of the Judges, in the book of 1 Samuel, the sons of Eli died in battle while misusing the Ark of the Covenant:
59 When God heard them, he was very angry;
he rejected Israel completely.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent he had set up among men.
61 He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
62 He gave his people over to the sword;
he was very angry with his inheritance.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
and their maidens had no wedding songs;
64 their priests were put to the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
This is the story told in 1 Samuel chapter 4. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, took the Ark of the Covenant into battle against the Philistines. But the Israelites blasphemed God, trying to manipulate their creator by forcing him into battle rather than praying for his forgiveness and for his presence and protection. They lost the battle, they lost the Ark of the Covenant, and they lost their lives. And when Phinehas’ pregnant widow found out that her husband the priest had been put to the sword and the Ark had been lost, she shouted out Ichabod!, “The glory has departed,” and that became the name of her child as she, too, died.
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
as a man wakes from the stupor of wine.
66 He beat back his enemies;
he put them to everlasting shame.
67 Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
68 but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loved. (NIV)
What do we think about when God seems to have forgotten about us? Do we lay the blame at the feet of God, thinking he is forgetful? Do we wonder what we’ve done to deserve a Divine Friend who doesn’t return our calls? What blame do we send his way? Shouldn’t we turn our eyes in shame to the great idol of our time, the image in the mirror, and wonder why we have followed our own ideas about God rather than God’s own words about himself and about our lives? We live in a world where “Me-ism” is fast becoming the great religion, and we are more ready than ever to brush aside anyone who dares to quote the Bible as we say, “That’s just your interpretation,” or “That’s how you understand it.” But the Bible has a simple sense, and we don’t have to probe the words very deeply to realize that what God is saying to us is right there in front of us.
For example, in this Psalm, the writer reviews all of the many times over the centuries that God’s people fell away into apostasy and rejected God, but how patient God was with them even though their sins steadily grew worse and worse from generation to generation. But finally, when God removed his own presence from among the people, he put a leader among the people who would be a man after his own heart; the apple of his eye.
The big and strong and famous northern tribes weren’t going to be the people to raise up this new leader. It would be Judah, flanked by pagans on three sides. Judah had Philistines to the west, Edomites to the south and Jebusites blocking the way into Benjamin in the northeast. Even the better cities—Ekron, Ashkelon, and Jerusalem—were all domains of the pagan Canaanites. But God would place his leader there, a king who would strengthen Israel and turn Israel’s hearts back to the Lord. Repentance would come from the lips and from the harp strings of Israel’s greatest warrior king:
David.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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